A HISTORY OF NORTHAMPTONSHIRE 



surrender of the convent personally, and strongly commended to Cromwell 

 the case of the abbess, whom he described as ' a gudde agydde woman.' He 

 assigned to her in her great age a fourth part of the sheep, namely fourscore, 

 and other stock, and asked Cromwell to deal favourably with her and her 

 sisters in their pensions.^ 



The commissioners also reported favourably of the nunnery of Catesby, 

 which they found in very perfect order : ' the prioress a sure wyse discrete 

 and very religyous woman with ix nunnys under here.' They considered 

 that the house was a great boon for the relief of the king's poor subjects in 

 a somewhat out-of-the-way quarter.^ At this report the king was angry, 

 and said openly that they had been bribed. Nor is this unlikely, for the 

 prioress of Catesby was at that very time foolishly writing direct to Cromwell, 

 quoting this report and offering him if he could get the king's leave for her 

 house to stand, ' one hundred marks of me to buy you a gelding, and my 

 prayers during my life, and all my sisters' during their lives.' ^ 



Most favourable also was the commissioners' report of the abbey of 

 St. James, Northampton, praising the brethren for their relief of the poor, 

 and stating that they were of good report with the whole town.* 



The commissioners' report was followed in every instance by the sup- 

 pression of the house reported on, and all monasteries in the county ceased to 

 exist within the five years 1535—40. In most cases the buildings, or the 

 greater portion of them, were destroyed. The great Benedictine abbey of 

 Peterborough, however, had a somewhat different fate from the monasteries, 

 being made the seat of one of the six new dioceses which were finally con- 

 stituted by Henry instead of the proposed fifteen.^ Letters patent in 1541 * 

 converted the monastery and church into an episcopal see for Northampton- 

 shire and Rutland with an establishment of bishop, dean, and six prebendaries. 

 Dr. Chambers, the last abbot, who had not been the choice of the monks, but 

 had been forced on them by Wolsey, and who had offered Cromwell >C3°° 

 to spare the abbey, was made first bishop, and the account of Peterborough in 

 the article on the Religious Houses will show how far the monastic revenues 

 were applied to the purposes of the see. By being separated, however, from 

 the huge diocese of Lincoln, to which it had belonged for five centuries, 

 Northamptonshire was at any rate placed in a position to receive better epis- 

 copal supervision. Great as were the wrongs inflicted by Henry upon the 

 church, his creation of new dioceses deserves to be mentioned as a very notable 

 improvement in her organization. Very different from the treatment of 

 Peterborough was that of the important Cistercian house of Pipewell, where 

 kings and councils had met in earlier times. This abbey was granted at the 



' Cott. MS. Cleop. E iv, fol. 208. ' Ibid. fol. 209. 



' L. and. P. Hen. nil, x. No. 383. 



* In this connexion it should be borne in mind that besides the daily distribution of food at the gates of 

 the monasteries the reception of poor travellers, and the special visiting of the sick and needy in the district, 

 there were as a rule certain sums set apart for alms, through bequests or otherwise. The sums were charged 

 on real property, and so came under the notice of the commissioners who drew up the Fa!or of 1535. The 

 amount in this county of the obligatory alms of monastic houses at the time of the dissolution, was ^^84 9;. I id. 

 equal to over j^8oo of our money. The precise amounts were : Peterborough £'^6 19/. 4a'., St. James's ^^7 bs. od. 

 St. Andrew's £6 \6s. zd., Pipewell, £1 15/. od.. Canons Ashby, ^^3 8/. od., Sulby, £2 18/. 9^'., and Delapre, 

 j^i 6s. id. Valor Eccl. (Rec. Com.), iv. 284, 296, 301, 315, 319, 321, 337. On the general subject of 

 monastic charities in the county see Dr. J. C. Cox, Engl. Mon. (1904), cap. iv. 



^ See Hen. VIII's scheme of bishoprics, L. and P. Hen. Fill, civ, pt. ii, Nos. 428, 429, 430. 



* Ibid, xvi, Nos. 1,148, 1,226 (6-8, 10). 



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